Exhaustion by a Dozen Cuts

Patrice Ford Lyn C.P.C

In the last few days, I've felt out of sorts.

Maybe it started with the chipped filling that caused more pain to fix than I anticipated on Friday.

Maybe it was the emotional gymnastics I put myself through about whether I sanitized enough and stayed six feet away during the entirety of my social distancing picnic on Saturday.

Maybe it was that my Rev wasn’t preaching this week so when I went online for Sunday service I didn’t get the spiritual nourishment I wanted.

Maybe it’s that the supermarket is still out of mangoes and I can’t find guineps anywhere.

Maybe it’s that John Lewis died and that hit me harder than I expected.

Maybe it’s that even after peaceful protesters were jailed with federal charges, no charges have been brought against Breonna’s killers

Maybe it’s that I went on a mini vacation and never got fully back into my self-care routine

Well, it’s probably the combination of each of these things and the other things - the things said and the things unsaid. (RBG, please be safe.)

But I needed to step away from noise. I needed to curl into myself and reclaim my peace. My body and spirit have been out of sorts so I got still. Got clear. And gave myself the respite, empathy and self soothing I needed.

Tomorrow is coming. Today is ending better than it started. Cheers to the days when we remember that we are living in a pandemic. We are in the midst of a racial reckoning. We are seeing death, devastation and destruction. We are feeling weary. We are human. We are responsible for setting our own boundaries and taking care of ourselves.